Gentlemen, and Genteel Ladies, what is the best defensive round for the .380acp? Updated in OP

Ok, when my last ex wife and I did have our little Kel Tech P3AT, we carried Magtech Guardian Gold +P 85gr JHP.
If fed well, no stoppages at all in 250rnds through each gun with it. Velocity is listed at 1082fps, ( my chronograph showed 1050fps avg ), and it's listed at 221ft/lbs energy. We also carried a couple of extra mags, one being full of FMJ. We only carried these guns as backups, or if we had on clothing or situations that would otherwise be difficult to conceal a larger handgun, such as when jogging.

Now, my first wife, the mother of my son, has decided to get a pistol. She bought a Ruger .380 LCP and is getting her CCW tomorrow. It has been a few years since I had the little .380, back in 2007, and I would like to know what has changed. I know some advocate using a solid bullet for penetration.

So, what is the best out there performance wise now. We live in a warm climate 85% of the year, although heavy clothing is common for about four months.

Thanks guys, looking to pick her some stuff up tomorrow quite possibly. ( Of course she's paying )

*********************************UPDATE**********************************************************************************************
I gave her these recommendations and it appears that she has chosen wisely. She is carrying the Hornady Critical Defense and has a backup mag of the Buffalo Bore. I just need to convince her that she needs a hell of a lot more practice.

When I talked to her today she informed me that " I already bought two boxes of carry ammo, that should be all I ever need."

I informed her that she needed to at least fire a few hundred rounds of it through the pistol to be sure it's 100% with it, as it would be a bad time to find out when she was on the ground getting raped by a 400 lb Bubba just out of prison looking to be the poker rather than the pokee for a change.

Depends on what feeds good in it. I am a FMJ guy. The Bersa .380 my sister has only like FMJ, the wad cutters stuff hangs in it all the time.

Let's say it feeds everything. Just for shits and giggles.
If it doesn't, we'll go from there.

Ball.

Most hollow points have problems making the minimum penetration per FBI standards.

Which brand of ammo specifically, be it ball or HP, would you guys recommend? What weight etc.?

definitly not TulAmmo. Shit jams up in my LCP.

Just about every other ball works fine for me though. There is the +P Corbon powr' ball, but Ruger recommends against +p.

My FEG R61 has 3 Corbon 90 gr JHPs followed by 3 Buffalo Bore hardcast.

Speer Gold Dot.

Anything I suggest to her will of course be brass or nickle cased. Even her practice ammo will be brass.

sig told me speer gold dot for sig 238. that is what its made to run and it does

Seriously dude. I made it clear that I'm seeking info on the .380 only. I made it clear that it is for a woman that isn't familiar with guns all that much. I also made it clear that I do in fact carry a larger gun personally, a 1911 in fact ( I didn't make the 1911 part clear ). She is my ex wife, and is a very petite little woman, still wears size 2 and maybe 4s on a bad day. I'm just happy she finally got something to carry. She's a home health nurse and one of them just got raped and murdered a week or two ago. I'm trying to get her as effective with what she has as possible. I'll get her moving up to at least a 9mm after a little time has passed. My last wife wanted the biggest, baddest whatever she could conceal. Hell, she carried a DE in a custom leather hand made concealment purse, a Kel Tech .380 on her ankle, and a Springfield Micro Compact 1911 .45acp in a Crossbreed, all at the same time, not to mention a Gerber Mark II. She was a mean sob that you didn't want to mess with, and you could tell by looking at her. Evil oozed from her, and people moved over when they saw her coming. She just had that look. This one here, is a little pussycat.

a hot flat point FMJ with a known track record for reliability

I consider 380 and 32 acp to be point of impact rounds. As in the bullets wont damage anything they don't directly come in contact with/ Forget temporary cavities or hydrostatic shock with these rounds they lack the HP to produce these phenomena. Shot placment, reliability and penetration are what you worry about with these mouse guns


I once shot up an entire box of 90g cor bon ammo in an afternoon eliminating part of an armadillo population explosion. NOT ONCE did this ;load either exit said panzerlizard or prevent it from making it into it's burrow after being shot at almost point blank range

I like the winchester white box truncated cone FMJ. Its reliable in my LCP, and Bodyguard, burns relatively clean, and produces moderate recoil.

Test of 95 grain fmj troncated cone vs ball

If you notice the truncated cone had a slightly higher muzzle velocity yet penetrated 16" compared to 18" for the ball round. This is a single data point so I hesitate to draw a conclusion, but it is some evidence that the truncated cone encountered more resistance in its path and may have destroyed more tissue stimulant. 16" is on the upper end of my desired level of penetration, and 18" is unacceptable to me, but beyond 12" thats a personal call.

I am aware of no JHP round that will produce both expansion and 12" depths reliably.

Go here; drtammo.com
The federal boys love it.

No commonly used handgun round will cause damage to anything the round does not come in contact with (with the possible exception of damage to the liver beyond where the round passes if it hits the liver to begin with,) as temporary cavities with those handgun rounds will not produce measurable damage. "Hydrostatic shock," at least when referencing handgun rounds, is not a wounding mechanism.


To the OP: I would suggest FMJ. I personally use HydraShocks in my .380s, as I am required to use them or Gold Dots by policy––-and the HydraShocks, unlike the Gold Dots, stand a good chance of not expanding at all, resulting in worthwhile penetration.

For the past several years I have used Double Tap FMJ in .380, but since I am almost out of that, will be switching to Federal American Eagle. I have a couple boxes of Corbon DPX for it but may never shoot it.

Ball loads only

This.

And this applies to all the sub 9mm Parabellum/38 Special calibers.

+1

http://www.natchezss.com/product.cfm?contentID=productDetail&prodID=FAAE380AP



http://www.natchezss.com/product.cfm?contentID=productDetail&prodID=WNQ4206

The only hollow point I'd use in 380 is a dpx round but you will only get about 10" of penetration. 380 is the trade off caliber.

I've used Fiocchi and Privi Partizan FMJ rounds in my old LCP, and they worked fine.

Who loves it?

Can you provide proof of that claim?

FMJ

Hornady Critical Defense for carry seems to have the best rep on the LCP board and I have run a few through mine with no problems. So far it works with everything I have put through it. I swapped the recoil spring out to a 12lb and the noticed recoil was much less but harder to cock.

I am carrying Buffalo Bore 100 grain flat nose +p.

Quite the snap to it!!!

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/188768/buffalo-bore-ammunition-380-acp-p-100-grain-flat-nose-box-of-20

Not me ! I'm just quoting an earlier ad by DRT. They supposedly like it because they claim that if you hit them anywhere in the torso, it will stop them, and it will not go all the way through and kill the innocent bystander behind them. DRT's words, not mine. By "Federal boys", I can only assume they mean CIA, FBI, etc.

What a bunch of crap.

OP: It's quite simple...

HP's don't have enough momentum to expand AND penetrate. You will get insufficient penetration.
FMJ's of any stripe will penetrate sufficiently, but obviously create and inferior permanent cavity.

Pick your poison. FWIW: There is no need to pack "buffalo bore" or similar recoiling ammunition, because even a wimpy FMJ will completely penetrate a human torso, which makes it unnecessary to deal with the extra blast/recoil.

Hornady critical defense.

Big +1

Don't whine to me, send DRT this message. It's all printed right on thier website which I bet you didn't read.

I'm well familiar with DRT. My comment wasn't directed at you as much as DRT's false and misleading advertising.

[ETA] Apologies if you took it as a personal attack - it's not what I meant to convey and I should have been more explicit.

precisely. a vendor can say whatever they want. that doesn 't mean it's remotely true. Do you beleive everything you read on the internet?

Never understood the appeal of DRT ammo.

One reason I asked the question here, is that there has always been a schism with the .380 between solids for penetration, and +P HP for increased wound channel. I went with the Magtech Guardian GOld +P with mine, with a separate mag with Magtech FMJ.
That was the first year of the Kel Tech P3AT, and I had hoped maybe there was something that was improved enough that a consensus would be in favor of it. The new Hornady looks real good though.

Nothing will change the .380 barring a miracle in propellant development. You simply can't drive a heavy enough bullet fast enough to expand and penetrate sufficiently. It's simple laws of physics.

There have been some outstanding developments in powders in recent years in rifles anyway. I also don't think the increase would be as substantial in a pistol with such small capacity either. I don't know about pistol powder, since I only load for .45 acp and 9mm and use bullseye and HS-6.
Particularly though, I was speaking of new developments in bullet construction, some of which has occurred. Whether those improvements are enough to make the jump regarding a consensus in HP vs FMJ in the .380 was questionable in my mind.

Remington Golden Sabers 102 grain have a good reputation too.

How much penetration is needed? I see little chance I'd need to shoot through a barrier, especially with a .380, like a winshield. I'm not using it for a home defense round, so I don't need it to go through dry wall. And for clothing, well I live in Houston, and most of the time everyone wears a one layer top, even crooks I would assume.

If it's one or the other (low penetration or no cavity creation) I think I'd rather go with the shallow big hole than the deep bullet OD hole.

Picture the biggest fattest meanest biker dude hopped up on Meth you can imagine with arms as big around as an office trashcan. Now picture your shot having to go through his arm before it even gets to the chest. THATS WHY you need the penatration



FWIW 380 doesn't have the powered to make jhp's create a cavity anyway. All they end up being is penatration arresting flesh parachutes. A .35 caliber hole has put a lot of strong men in the ground over the past 160 years or so. 380 jhp's not so much

I prefer Corbon Powerball ammo for my LCP.

It's more likely here in Houston that I've have to protect myself from a 125 lbs MS-13 member than a Bandio, and the FMJ would sail through him and go who knows where. I think I'll sticj to Rem Golden Sabers.

I would be looking at the Buffalo Bore standard pressure flat point hard-cast. That or one of Double Tap's FMJ loadings.

I just don't trust the QC of something like Winchester White Box or other such range ammo. YMMV.

9mm or greater...

12"

Like I said, not an option. The ex wife picked her poison. She just called me up one day and said, " Guess what, I'm getting a gun, and I'm taking a self defense class, and I'm getting my CCW next weekend."

She bought the gun before I had a chance to say anything. I would have steered her to a 9mm. Most likely a S&W M&P 9mm. It seems to fit a lot of women well, even the small ones like her with the interchangeable grips, and the one I had was reliable, accurate, and easy to clean and care for. ( She's 5'3" 110-115 ) size 2. To me, a .380 is a back up gun at best, and at worst, a carry gun if there are no other options available.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/test_data/380acp/hor380-90xtp-b85.htm

According to this, they are getting around 11.5 inches average penetration. That would be sufficient IMO for a .380

Picture his arm stretched out towards you with a gun it though. That is one of the main reasons for the penetration requirement––––if you are shooting at someone standing face on to you, with his hands at his side, with the least width of body available, then a shallow penetrating round will likely be sufficient.

Of course, if you are shooting someone in that sort of circumstance, you are probably going to prison not long afterwards, so the point is not all that relevant.

Copyright © 1996 - 2013 :: AR15.Com LLC :: All Rights Reserved.
Any use of this content without express written consent is prohibited.